Lest We Forget

Multi Tasking Mayhem

So I work 25 hours a week at my 'day job' (39 weeks of the year), I teach one Friday a month, and every other Monday, I have two embroidery customers who have about 30 units embroidered every four or six (or eight) months.  I have en embroidery machine that gets serviced maybe as often as once a year, and I have a nephew who very occasionally goes abroad for business, so I go and help his wife with little Miss two-and-a-half and the four month old twins

Statistically a few of these things may occasionally happen in the same week - BUT EVERY SINGLE ONE??????  Oh and we can add in that Lisa is moving stuff home from London in preparation for going to Australia, so my overflow sewing room is packed

The sweat shop that is my sewing room

And the storage facility that is my overflow sewing room

OK Pity Party over - I'm off to play babies.  When I next come up for air I have some marvellous miniatures, and a fab flower to show you

Inspired in Ireland (3)

We raced against the clock on Sunday afternoon . . . and managed to finish another Noodlehead partitioned basket

Jackie had bought some vinyl, so we had a go at the zippered pouches that Kathy makes so well, and finished one each. (I will add links later, but if you ever want a link to anything just message me)

And having bought the vinyl we *had* to play, so we made up these too


We also started sewing the + blocks together, but they didn't look much different so no pic of that.
I still have money in my pocket, so I bought a few (!) FQs

And I've ordered a few zips after falling in love with Jackie's

Now I'm back in Blighty, back to bored (work) and feeling bereft: it may be next March before we manage to meet up again :-(

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Inspired in Ireland (2)

So we spend Saturday surrounded by fabric, scissors, pins, rotary cutters - it was heaven!
The was some cutting and laying out which led to this

Some cutting and sewing (and, gasp, following of instructions ) which led to this divided basket from Noodlehead

And some laying out and moving and changing minds of this fabric collection

We also tried some crochet, with one of us trying very patiently to teach the other one a new stitch (I didn't get it!)

We have a list of things to try tomorrow before I have to go home!

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Inspired in Ireland

I've escaped from work, overdraft, unfinished house and my usual life and am having four days in Ireland with Jackie.  Sewing with another enthusiast is do much better than sewing alone, and I'm sure we get more than twice as much achieved!  There is possibly a bit of chatting and catching up, and putting the world to rights too

We've had a day being tourists in Dublin, and another at the knitting and stitching show. 

Jackie's son Patrick took us on a guided tour of Dublin - he walked us miles and miles, and took us to some great places, then hurried us along for a 3:30 surprise ... He'd booked us into a Viking splash tour!  It was amazing, I've wanted to go on one for years (in London, and they started a year or so ago in Windsor)  we had such a good time!  Thank you Dr Pat x

The knitting and stitching show saw a few (but seriously, only a few) purchases

And then we came "home" to another treat - I've finally met my honorary grandson, the gorgeous, oh so happy Aidan - I think he's the most cheerful baby I've ever met!  I'm in love!!!!

Tomorrow I'll show you what we achieved on sewing day #1!

Beetle's (Big Brother) Bag

I know, I know, its not a beetle, but I always thought of them as the beetle's big brother, even though we called then dakdaks (from the noise of the engine)

And now it's a bag for a customer!  Hope you like it Lynne

Secret Revealed

A few days ago I showed a tiny section of a sewing secret

- now I can show you the rest!

Following on from teaching craft / mug caddies at a class, I realised that this idea wasn't limited to mug size.

I made one from a big coffee canister

and then made an even bigger one from a tall biscuit tin - perfect for knitting needles and  ball or two of wool, I hope!

By the time this post is published (I've scheduled it), Jackie will have received it - and hopefully liked it!

I also made her a pincushion & thread thingy:

Both of the pincushions were based on this one I saw at my friend Heather's house

Secret Sewing and Selfish Sewing

The secret sewing?  Well I can show you this much for now, the rest will be revealed ... later

And I did some selfish sewing - for me: I treated myself to a pincushion and cotton reel holder:

Cut 5 circles, stitch two in pairs, right sides together, repeat

Snip in centre, turn right way out, press into circle shapes

Stitch running stitch 1/4 inch from edge of 5th circle

Stack the two turned circles on top on each other, stitch across centre 3 or 4 times (ie 60 or 45 degree lines) but start and stop 3/4" from the edge.  Stitch at edge- where the lines would have stopped

Pull thread tight on 5th circle, stuffing as you tighten.  Use ribbon or cord to thread through gaps created and through cotton reels or bobbins, tug to create bowl shape.

tuck stuffed circle into the bowl shape created, tie ribbons.

Ta da!

New to Me

Fiona, at Celtic Thistle runs a 'New to Me' linky each month.


I don't often have anything to contribute, but this week I've had a go at lacemaking!

It was originally offered as a children's holiday class at Chertsey museum: only three kids signed up, but several adults (including me) said they were interested, so we were allowed to join the kids!

It was very basic lace making, and using different types of threads for the passive threads (warp) and embroidery threads for the weaver (the weft), but we used the pins and the bobbins - all proper stuff!

Its a bit like weaving - in fact the initial result was weaving, but we then started adding twists which you couldn't easily do with weaving

The design was a sort of zigzag, but I do feel it looks more wonky than zigzagged, but her samples were pretty much the same!  Id like to try again, but I think I'd go for something straighter

I then came home in the mood to progress something that had stalled, so I dug out the red linen quilt which was last worked on about six weeks ago.  I trimmed all the blocks to the right size

And joined them in strips

Further Finishes

Following a load of "nearly finishes" in the summer, I can now start to show some "actual finishes" - all it took was a couple of hours to hand sew the binding onto this

And a few more hours to finish this:

Two finishes - so I can start some new ones right?

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Final Festival Entry

I posted a new finish for my large quilt entry to Amy's Bloggers Quilt Festival, but my second entry is a bit older.

Last year husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a once in a lifetime trip to see the northern lights

They were, needless to say, amazing!  I made this wall hanging as a reminder of the trip.  The fabrics are an assortment of Kona solids in a design that is related to Bargello, but a fairly distant relation!

To get the people (husband and I?) I designed them both for machine embroidery using PEDesign.  they are both stitched black on black, but the stitches are slanted in opposite directions so they catch the light differently.

I'm entering this as an Art Quilt

Finished for the Festival

I expect every quilter in the world knows about Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival by now, but if you haven't visited, make yourself a big cuppa and start looking at the entries for this festival - my gosh there are some fab quilts to be seen!

I usually find a new blogger to follow too - and have found some great ones in the past!  Thanks Amy for all the work you put into this

My first humble offering this year is my Irish Chain.

It was inspired by a quilt made by my non-blogging but awesome quilting bestie, Jackie, I wimped out of copying hers as it had too many HSTs, but I went with the sort of colours she is drawn to.  She's Irish, and this design is an Irish Chain and the fabric is Moda's Essential Dots - so it has the imaginative name "Essential Irish". 

 The Moda fabric is really soft, so I decided to back it with an incredibly soft fleece blanket (technically it is a coverlet not a quilt as it's two layers rather than 3)

(Edit: I'm really pleased with the result.  I love Irish chains, but not too keen on the ones with single blocks mixed with nine patches.  This way was a lot more work, but worth it!  The construction is a variation on the quilt as you go method, but a *really* quick version!  I taught myself to quilt (made it up as I went along) before the days of blogging, so I didn't know about the rules - just figured out a quick and cheap method!!)

The back story can be read in various posts:

• Cutting the fabric and starting the 9 patch blocks here last November
• More blocks and initial layout here in January 2014
• Final layout here in February
• How to quick piece/assemble/initially quilt a coverlet here in May
• Extra quilting here in June
• Making it into a Quillow and machining the binding here in July 2014
• And finally this week the binding has been hand stitched to the back (you can see I don't like to rush these things)

 It is lovely and big - I just kept going until I'd filled the fleece, and the few remaining blocks went into the quillow front: The whole thing is appx 50 x 78 inches (130 x 200cm) and oh so warm and soft and snugly - and in the warmer months when we don't need *another* quit on the back of the sofa . . . it can be a cushion

R2D2 Done

My little R2D2 has now been finished, phew

From the back he doesn't look too great,

But I love him from the front

 As well as hand sewing, I have been machine embroidering a batch of these for a friend of Lisa's: 5 done, 5 to go

I love the design!

Now back to binding!